[The central conflict of "Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota" is] the opposition between an impulse to change and failure or inability to do so. The speaker is aware from the beginning that he has "wasted" his life. Each of the poem's major images depicts his frustrated impulse toward change. The last lines suggest that as the evening of his life approaches the speaker resigns himself to a permanent state of irresolution. To "lean back" is to give up; this hardly seems the posture of aroused insight.

The butterfly, a traditional symbol of metamorphosis, indicates at the outset the speaker's concern with change. However the conventional meaning of the image is undercut by several details: "bronze" suggests rigidity; sleep denies to the butterfly any possibility of consciously determined movement; and "Blowing like a leaf" implies a lack of volitional strength—a leaf...